The Week in Breakingviews

Where is a company from? It’s a knotty question that tends to defy simple answers. Consider the identity of Shein. The fast-fashion phenomenon was founded in China, is headquartered in Singapore, generates most of its sales in the United States, and might list its shares in London. According to the Financial Times Executive Chairman Donald Tang, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen, recently said it could be considered an American company. However, an initial public offering depends on the blessing of Chinese regulators.

Or take Chinese makers of electric vehicles, which face higher tariffs on imports to Europe. Most of these companies might be defined as Chinese, but some international carmakers also export vehicles made in the People’s Republic to Europe. Meanwhile, groups like BYD may steer around the tariffs by opening European factories. The definition blurs.

There was a time when the passports carried by a company’s top management might have been decisive, but that no longer applies to today’s business-schooled executive class. Choosing a stock market listing is a matter of financial expediency, not patriotism. Where a company locates its headquarters is important, but even this can be exaggerated. The mining group Glencore has operations around the world, is listed in London and is led by a South African from a head office outside Zurich. Does that make it Swiss?

Maybe the nationality of the shareholders is what counts. In some cases, that’s true. Again, though, financial capitalism frustrates simple definitions. If a fund managed by Blackstone makes an acquisition with cash it raised from Chinese, Middle Eastern and Singaporean investors, where is the buyer from?

This is not to say nationality does not matter. Companies were never as stateless as advocates of globalisation pretended. For a long time, however, governments tended to worry more about local employment and tax income. That’s changed. Expect more fuzzy and frustrating debates about where a company is from.

Some things I learned from Breakingviews this week:

The richest 1% of Indians gathered almost 23% of the country’s national income in 2022, up from 6% in 1982.

Banks in the euro zone periphery trade at higher valuations than those in the single currency area’s core countries.

Amgen, once an upstart in the pharma industry, now has the same market value as Pfizer.

Chinese banks have fewer bad loans, as a proportion of total loans, than two years ago.

Investors in Japanese companies filed fewer motions at annual meetings than last year.